Do you really think that your paranoiac and self-serving assertions count as "history"? Look, Shlomo-Farkelsteinman-Abdul ibn Saud, you are native to Arabia. Your people have wiped out all pre-Islamic cultures in the areas you have stolen. Now you want to steal Europe, then the US. You think you're fooling someone?

What is you brilliant suggestion? Keep controlling the territories? No country lasts with more than 50% of it's budget directed to military resources, especially when you consider the current bureaucratic entity that the IDF turned to. As someone said, water is wasted, not treated, the Jordan, even under full control is under constant threat of salinization and contamination. Give me a break. So what? No whater? Look at Dubai, Saudi Arabia, even Australia, all those places are facing water shortages and they manage to survive. Better make peace, create some great nuclear power plants to supply the desalinization plants, maybe we can also dream about stop using oil! BTW, nobody says anything when the government decides to explore the few reserves of oil of the country... Water is not our only problem, is time for this country to start SAVING resources. In the past, we manage to survive because we learned to save the water from the rain inside the mountains, now we throw this same water into the sea...

a) "Prior Use" was NOT estab-lished as a result of the taking over the "West Bank" but before that since, as I mentioned Israel was using most of the ground water of the aquifer from inside pre-67 lines because of the direction of the subterranean flow. You seem unable to grasp this b) While it is true that Palestinian farmers were not been permitted to drill wells at will, similar restrictions apply to Israeli farmers as well. Severe restrictions on drilling and extraction rates in the Mountain Aquifer were enforced in regard to Israelis west of the ‘Green Line’ prior to the '67 take-over of the ‘West Bank’. After this, essentially the same well drilling and pumping restrictions were extended to these territories c) It is true that the fresh water allocation to Palestinian farmers has not been increased, but for Israeli farmers it has been REDUCED - and significantly so over recent years. Moreover, in spite this , the scale Palestinian agriculture developed dramatically under Israeli administration: The overall area under cultivation increased by 160% while agricultural output increased 12 fold (by 1200%!) in the period 1967-1989. This is a result of the adoption of modern water-efficient irrigation techniques such as sprinklers and drip irrigation by Palestinian farmers, instead of open channel or rain fed irrigation that were prevalent before Israeli administration in these areas. Of course sine the establishment of Palestinian administration most of these achievements have been lost . d) With regard to urban usage, the Palestinian household consumption of water rose dramatically under Israeli rule - by almost 600% from 1967 -89, from 5.6 mill. cu.m. to 32 mill.cu Out of the roughly 430 towns and villages in Judea and Samaria only 50 were connected to a running water system in June 1967. By comparison this figure rose to 260 by 1.10. 91. In the period 1967 -89 Israeli domestic usage rose from 211 mill cu. m. to 495 mill cu. m or approximately 230%- much less than 600% increase Palestinian domestic usage in the same period. These figures hardly lend credence to the charges of an Israeli policy of blatant deprivation and callous neglect of Palestinian needs e) Numerous reports abound of incidents where new Israeli drilling operations have allegedly dried out existing Palestinian springs and shallow wells. However hydrological studies prove that there is usually no physical connections between the deep strata feeding the Israeli wells and the shallow strata feeding the Palestinian sources such as in the Ouja region near Jericho where The fact that the two sources are indeed isolated and independent of each other, is confirmed not only by the totally different depths, but also by the totally different composition and concentration of dissolved solids in the water derived from them There is thus no truth in the emotionally charged claim that Israel has deprived the villagers of their water source. Indeed, springs and wells such as those at Ouja, whose flows ceased or were drastically reduced during the severe drought of 1989-91, were revived after the heavy rains of 1991-92, showing conclusively that they were afflicted by seasonal fluctuations in precipitation, rather than being permanently undercut by deeper Israeli drilling f) There have, however, been several instances where Israeli drilling and pumping operations have indeed lowered the water table, adversely affecting the supply in some shallow wells and springs, such as in the case of Barda’le in the Jordan Valley. In virtually all these cases, not only have the Palestinians been compensated by an alternative supply, but their water situation has actually been improved by the new supply, since this is being delivered by more advanced methods (in a pressurized pipe-line rather than a free flowing seasonal source) allowing more efficient and effective use of the water, particularly with regard to irrigation techniques

I have no reason to question Martin Sherman's statistics (#34), but several numbers are -- if I read them correctly -- a bit eyebrow-raising. Citing 1989 figures (more recent ones would be useful), he notes that Palestinian urban domestic water usage was 32 million cubic m while Israeli citydwellers consumed 495 million cubic m. Given urban populations of roughly 2 million Palestinians vs. 6 million Israelis, this would indicate that urban Israelis received and consumed about 7.5 times as much water as their Palestinian counterparts. Does this jibe with Sherman's assertion that "these figures hardly lend credence to the charges of an Israeli policy of blatant deprivation and callous neglect of Palestinian needs"?

1. The figures for Palestinian domestic use do not represent water QUOTAS but water CONSUMPTION. Water was not rationed to the domestic Palestinian consumer, so the consumption figures represent ACTUAL DEMAND not IMPOSED DEPRIVATION. 2. What you should be looking at is the demand in the pre-1967 period which reflects the level of consumption under JORDANIAN rule and them compare with that under Israeli administration - and draw the obvious conclusion a regarding the dramatic rise in living standards that were achieved under alleged Israeli "oppression". 3. As for the currency of the figures, remember that in the early 90s Israeli administration was withdrawn from the "West Bank" -- and the less said about the reliability of the statistics since them, the better. Moreover, water piracy and neglect of infrastructure (including losses due to leakage) during this period are liable to thwart even the most sincere efforts at accuracy

as the essay. In dealing with a scarce resource (water) that can be measured over time and that has properties that are well known, we have great leverage in analyzing the political rhetoric around the issue. We are as close to a "critical test" as we can be. The Pals and leftists have failed, needless to say.

Whether or not formal "quotas" are applied is irrelevant if actual supply or availability is physically limited by infrastructure (or lack thereof). Consumption levels necessarily depend on available supply. Given the disparity between Israeli and Palestinian per capita consumptions, then, I am inclined to wonder: Under Israeli administration, has there been anything approaching parity in infrastructural investment and consequent supply for both Israeli and Palestinian citydwellers? How else is this disparity to be explained? Is it because urban Palestinians take fewer showers than Israelis, don't use flush toilets, don't water their lawns, don't have swimming pools? Further : if 1989 Israeli water consumption is deemed "satisfactory" or "decent" or "adequate for normal life," how would you characterize Palestinian per capita consumption, which -- after 20 years of Israeli administration -- is one-fifth as great? Conversely, if Palestinian water consumption is deemed "satisfactory," how would you characterize an Israeli consumption that is five times greater? Extravagant? Wasteful? If that is the case, I suggest that Israel's impending water crisis might be alleviated by simply requiring Israelis to cut down on their consumption by four-fifths.

with your lack of focus in reality, don't have any doubts about it

The urban consumer in California , where there is also a problem of water shortage, uses between 2-3 times that of the Israeli urban consumer. This difference is not because of greater restrictions on the Israeli consumer or inadequate infrastructure relative to his Californian counterpart, but because of range of socio-economic, cultural and lifestyle factors including the prevalence parks, private and public gardens, water-related recreation activities etc. These have little to do with restrictions or infrastructure investments. Even within the Jewish population of Israel there are vast differences between the domestic water consumption rates of various socio-economic groups. Californians, Israeli and Palestinians all have taps, which as a rule, deliver water whenever they are opened. How often and how long they are opened depends on the decision of the individual consumer and not on the discriminatory cessation of supply to households.

Sherman's numbers are a bit confusing ("simple arithmetic" doesn't suffice!), but I take from them that 1) Israel's own water extraction (its "deficit") is 300-500 million cu m/year; and 2) to fulfill its actual consumption, Israel further extracts two or three times that amount (1 billion cu m) from the occupied territories/Golan. The subtext of Sherman's article is, then, that Israel does not limit its consumption to its own resources, cannot afford to lose this "borrowed" water and therefore cannot afford to end the occupation. This does not say much for Israel's self-sufficiency as a nation nor does it bode well for any prospect of peace between Israel and its neighbors.

For a view that contrasts to that of Mr. Sherman, I recommend this article by Jad Isaac: http://www.palestinecenter.org/cpap/pubs/19990818ib.html

... is that there was no Jewish temple on the Temple Mount; that Ishmael, not Isaac, was to be sacrificed; that the Jenin "massacre" killed 5000 moppets; and that lying to infidels is a-ok. it doesn't matter if "the other side" has gullible Jews in its stable.

... before bothering with the subtext. As Sherman notes in #24, Egypt relies on the same legal principle that Israeli does for its use of the Nile water. Is Egypt therefore not "self-sufficient"? Is it "stealing water"? Israel doesn't "borrow" water; it has rights to the water. There is a body of international law that applies--and it applies even when it benefits the Jewish state. Sorry. Frankly, when a state threatens another's water supply, that is indeed an act of war. Israel's hostile neighbors already launch rockets and missiles into Israel. You think they wouldn't mess with Israel's water supply? You see, RSY, one reason there is law governing water is to avoid the need for countries to go to war about the matter. Anyway, the Pals are squatters on Jewish land; there is no "occupation" as the only Pal state was to be Jordan.

Turmoil in the Eastern Empire! The Americans are fighting those pesky Babylonian terrorists, Olmert is going to send cruise missles against the Medes and the Persians (following his recent victory over the Phonecians), Pharoah is stealing water from the Kingdom of Kush and the Abyssinians have invaded the Kingdom of Aksum. As if that weren't enough, the Ishmaelites are squatting in Judaea and Samaria. How confusing it is to have one's feet in 2007 A.D. and one's head in the Second Millenium B.C.!

...but you digress. I hope that you read the article that I recommended. It deals with the prosaic subject of water, as does Mr. Sherman's. No mention of temples, sacrifices, massacres or other non-hydrological matters. In any case, this is a very important subject that demands realism and objectivity, along with -- as always -- a healthy dose of skepticism. Sherman's arguments are interesting and enlightening, but they are far from the last word. Opposing viewpoints should be carefully scrutinized. For starters, I suggest that you google "water palestine" (or "water israel," for that matter). Then read and sort things out for yourself.

The "Pals" don't have it. Islam doesn't have it. I do not see this as a dispute between well-intentioned people who disagree, where we, the readers, need to scrutinize the evidence and arguments. There is nothing well intentioned about the "Pals," including their manufacturing of a fake nationality. After Sherman's article and his long TB responses, his high credibility and the quality of his work, coupled with the low credibility of the Pals, concluded the decision as far as I was concerned. I recommend you read more about Islam and jihad. Rational decision makers factor in prior information in assessing competing claims.

You are a fun writer. Unfortunately, you have moved from subtext to fiction without ever having assessed the original text. Oh, and I'm secular, btw. It must be confusing for you, however, to have your head in the Constantinople of the 1400s, discussing religous niceties, while your civilization was about to be sacked by Islam.

General Charles Chandler Krulak, USMC Commandant, retired. During the first Gulf War in 1991, General Norman Schwartzkof did not have enough potable water to attack Iraq. He turned to then Lt. General Charles Krulak who was in charge of logistics and told him he needed 100,000 gallons of potable water a day to procede into Iraq. Lt. General Krulak knelt down to pray. About 30 minutes later, an underground water desalinization plant was found in the desert nearby that had never been used. It produced 100,000 gallons of water a day. That is the man Israel needs for its water problems. I believe he lives in Delaware, now. There are many witnesses to verify this.